CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE
unaccented or unstressed syllables followed
Literature
- Comes from the Latin word “litera” which literally
means an “acquaintance with letters”
- It is a body of work containing imaginative language
that realistically portrays thoughts, emotions,
Classification of literary type (literary genre)
Poetry – is a form of literary art that uses aesthetic and
rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning
Elements of Poetry
 Verse – one line of poetry
 Stanza – group of verses
 Rhythm – beats or accented syllables
 Meter – pattern of beats or accented syllables
 Rhyme – syllables that sound similar
 Form – pertains to the style of the poem
 Classical Poetry – shows metrical pattern, has
specific number of lines and has rhyme scheme.
 Contemporary Poetry – does not have meter,
rhyme, nor pattern. also called free or blank verse.
 Rhyme – repetition of similar sounds.
• End Rhyme – refers to words with similar
sounds that appear at the end of the lines.
• Internal Rhyme – kind of rhyme found in the
middle of the lines or a rhyme within the lines.
 Rhythm – refers to the tempo or beat created through
the stress and unstressed syllables presented in the
lines.
 Meter – the pattern of the sounds or the organized
arrangement of sounds.
• Poetry meter - the rhythmical pattern of stressed
and unstressed syllables in verse
• Type of Foot
▪ Trochaic Foot or Trochee - a succession of
accented and unaccented syllables or an
unaccented syllable following an accented
syllables.
▪ Anapestic Foot or Anapest - consist of two
by one accented or stress syllables.
▪ Dactylic Foot or Dactyl - consist of stressed
or an accented syllable which is followed by
two unstressed or unaccented syllables.
▪ Iamb or Iambic Foot - a type of foot
consisting of a short syllable which is
followed by a long syllables, or an unstressed
syllable which is followed by a stressed
syllables.
• Number of Feet
▪ Monometer – one feet
▪ Dimeter – two feet
▪ Trimeter – three feet
▪ Tetrameter – four feet
▪ Pentameter – five feet
▪ Hexameter – six feet
▪ Heptameter – seven feet
▪ Octameter – eight feet
• Rhyme Scheme - the ordered pattern of
rhymes at the ends of the lines of a poem or
verse
• Alternate Rhyme - it is also known as
ABAB rhyme scheme, it rhymes as “ABAB
CDCD EFEF GHGH.”
• Ballade - it contains three stanzas with the
rhyme scheme of “ABABBCBC” followed
by “BCBC.”
• Monorhyme - it is a poem in which every
line uses the same rhyme scheme.
• Couplet - it contains two-line stanzas with
the “AA” rhyme scheme, which often
appears as “AA BB CC and DD…”
• Triplet - it often repeats like a couplet, uses
rhyme scheme of “AAA.”
• Limerick - a poem uses five lines with a
rhyme scheme of “AABBA.”
 Types of Poetry
1. Narrative Poetry - a form of poetry that tells a story
 Ballad – a type of narrative poetry that narrates a
story.
 Epic – a lengthy kind of narrative poem which
centers on a historical or legendary hero’s
victorious feat.
2. Lyric Poetry – a kind of poem expresses the strong
emotions and thoughts of the persona in the poem.
 Ode – a lyric poem of medium or long length,
focused on a significant subject.
 Sonnet – a type of lyric poem that has fourteen
lines, and is often expressed in iambic pentameter
in English.
 Elegy – a form of lyric poetry which focuses on
mourning for the dead.
3. Descriptive Poetry - a type of poetry which describes
the environment that the persona is in.
Other Types of Poetry
Haiku – a type of poem originated in Japan; Matsuo
Basho is one of the famous who makes haiku
Prose - a form of language that possesses ordinary syntax
and natural speech rather than rhythmic structure
 Novel - a long fictional prose narrative.
 Novella - exists between the novel and short story
 Short Story
Drama – any text meant to be performed rather than read,
usually called plays
Fiction – texts that feature events and characters that have
been made up
Non-fiction – factual
Media – newest type of literature, any work that doesn’t
exist primarily as a written text
Oral literature – oldest type of literature
Written literature
CHAPTER 2: LITERARY GENRES
Poetry
- is derived from a Greek word poesis meaning
"making or creating."
- Is as varied as the nature of man-unique in some sense
along with man’s eccentricities, yet clings if
appreciated or if deeply imbibe by the reader
Some of the best definitions of poetry:
1. Gemino Abad contends that "A poem is a
meaningful organization of words."
2. T.S. Eliot categorized poetry as "The fusion of two
poles of mind, emotion and thought."
3. Manuel Viray states that "Poetry is the union of
thoughts and feelings."
4. William Wadsworth says, "Poetry is the
spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings recorded
in tranquility."
5. Edgar Allan Poe thinks, "It is the rhythmic creation
of beauty."
Elements of Poetry
1. Sense - is revealed through the meaning of words,
images and symbols.
a. diction - denotative and connotative
meanings/ symbols.
b. images and sense impression - sight, sound,
smell, taste, touch, motion, and emotion.
c. figure of speech
2. Sound - is the result of a combination of elements.
a. tone color - alliteration, assonance,
consonance, rhyme, repetition, anaphora.
b. rhythm - ordered recurrent alteration of
strong and weak elements in the flow of the
sound and silence: duple, triple, running or
common rhyme.
c. meter - stress, duration, or number of
syllables per line
d. rhyme scheme - formal arrangement of
rhymes in stanza or the whole poem.
3. Structure - refers to (1) arrangement of words, and
lines to fit together, and (2) the organization of the
parts to form a whole.
a. word order - natural and unnatural
arrangement of words
 b. ellipsis - omitting some words for economy
and effect
c. punctuation - abundance or lack of
punctuation marks
d. shape - contextual and visual designs: jumps,
omission of spaces, capitalization, lower
case.
Types of Poetry
1. Narrative Poetry
a. Epic - a long narrative poem of the largest
proportions.
b. Metrical Romance - a narrative poem that tells a
story of adventure, love and chivalry.
c. Metrical Tale - a narrative poem that tells a story
and adheres to a specific metrical and rhythmic
structure
d. Ballad - the simplest type of narrative poetry. It
is a short narrative poem telling a single incident
in simple meter and stanzas. It is intended to be
sung.
e. Popular Ballad - a ballad of wide workmanship
telling some simple incidents of adventure,
f. Modern or Artistic - created by a poet imitation
of the folk ballad
g. Metrical Allegory - an extended narrative that
carries a second meaning along with the surface
story. Things and actions are symbolic.
2. Lyric Poetry
a. Ode - a lyric poem of some length serious in
subject and dignified in style
b. Elegy - a poem written on the death of a friend of
the poet.
c. Song - a lyric poem in a regular metrical pattern
set to music. These have twelve syllables
(dodecasyllabic) and slowly sung to the
accompaniment of a guitar or bandurria.
d. Corridos (kuridos) - these have measures of
eight syllables (octosyllabic) and recited to a
material beat.
e. Sonnet - a lyric poem containing fourteen iambic
lines, and a complicated rhyme.
Figures of Speech
 Simile - consists of comparing two things using the
words like or as.
 Metaphor - uses direct comparison of two unlike
things or ideas.
 Personification - gives human traits to inanimate
objects or ideas.
 Apostrophe - is a direct address to someone absent,
dead, or inanimate.
 Metonymy - substitutes a word that closely relates to
a person or a thing.
 Synecdoche - uses a part to represent the whole.
 Hyperbole - makes use of exaggeration.
 Irony - says the opposite of what is meant.
 Allusion - refers to any literary, biblical, historical,
mythological, scientific event, character or place.
 Antithesis - involves a contrast of words or ideas.
 Paradox - uses a phrase or statement that on surface
seems contradictor, but makes some kind of
emotional sense.
 Litotes - makes a deliberate understatement used to
affirm by negating its opposite.
 Oxymoron - puts together in one statement two
contradictory terms.
 Onomatopoeia - the formation or use of words which
imitate sounds
Essays
- Is a prose composition of moderate length usually
expository in nature, which aims to explain or clear
up an idea, a theory, an expression, or point of view.
- Is the most popular form of literature.
- Is any written text that is not a poem, is not a novel
and is not a drama.
Elements of Essay
1. Theme and Content - what is the main point of the
essay?
2. Form and Structure - how are ideas ordered to
achieve a single effect?
3. Language and Style - what makes the essay literary?
Types of Essays
1. Formal or Impersonal Essay
- serious and important topics like philosophy,
theology, science and politics.
- It has an authoritative and scholarly style and
shows the writer's masterful grasp of the topic.
2. Informal or Familiar Essay
- covers the light, ordinary, even common place
subjects.
- the familiar essay appeals more to the emotion
than to intellect, touching.
1. Reflective - serious in tone and dignified in style,
this type is mainly aphoristic.
2. Narrative - uses an accident or event, not for the
sake of the story but to shape the theme.
3. Descriptive - adds vividness, reality and
animation to the narrative essay:
4. Speculative - theories or poses some questions in
an interesting subject or its problems.
5. Biographical - portrays characters or sketches of
life, not simply chronicling it.
6. Nature - aims to picture the world of trees,
flowers, birds, mountains, animals, and plants.
7. Critical - includes biography, literary criticism,
book reviews and other prose compositions that
aim at analytical judgement upon literature.
8. Didactic - enforces a moral lesson. Explaining or
trying to convince.
Drama
- Comes from the Greek word "dran" which means to
do.
- Aristotle defines drama as "the imitation of an
action”.
- Drama imitates life.
- Drama is not the same as play production, drama is
the literary text, when performed, it is called a play.
KINDS OF THEATER
1. Arena - is the theatre style of early Greeks. The actors
are surrounded on all sides by the audience and they
make exits and entrances though the aisles.
2. Medieval - is the theatre which uses playing areas
called mansions. In some performances, the actors
came into the audience, breaking the sense of distance
or the illusion of separation.
3. Elizabeth - is the theatre which was a wooden
structure providing an enclosed space around a
country open sky. Actors were in the habit of
speaking directly to members of the audience, and the
audience rarely kept polite silence.
4. Proscenium - was the stage of the nineteenth century.
This type of stage distances the audience from the
play, providing a clear frame behind which the
performances act out their scenes.
5. Theatre of Cruelty - was developed in France. This
type of theatre closes the gap between the actor and
audiences. Its purpose was to confront the members
of the audience individually to make them feel
uncomfortable
Types of Drama
1. Tragedy - a serious drama in which the protagonist,
traditionally of noble position, suffers a series of
unhappy events that lead to a catastrophe such as
death or spiritual breakdown.
2. Comedy - a type of drama intended to interest and
amuse the audience rather than to make them deeply
concerned about the events that happen.
• Comedy of Humors or Old Comedy - resembles
farce and often pokes fun at individuals who think
of themselves as very important.
• Comedy of Manners or New Comedy - is realistic
and satirical is concerned with the manners and
conventions of high society.
3. Tragicomedy - a play that does not adhere strictly to
the structure of tragedy. This is usually a serious play
that also has some of the qualities of comedy.
ELEMENTS OF DRAMA
a. Plot – a term for the action of drama.
b. Characters - as the conflict unfolds, so are the
characters revealed.
c. Setting – refers to the time and place in which the
action occurs.
d. Dialogue - the speeches that the characters use to
advance the action.
• Soliloquy - a speech in which an actor, usually
alone on stage, utters his or her thoughts aloud,
revealing personal feelings.
• Aside - a short speech made by a character to the
audience which, by convention, the other
characters onstage cannot hear.
e. Movement - where the characters are, when they
move, and perhaps even the significance of their
movement.
f. Music -is an occasional dramatic element in a play.
g. Theme - is the message, the central action, or what
the play is about.
CHAPTER 3: READING AND INTERPRETING
THE LITERARY TEXTS
Ways of looking at literature
Critical Perspective
Categories of Observations
• The Writer’s Life
• The Writer’s Culture
• The Work (Structure, Techniques)
• Characters or Speaker
• Ideas, Lessons, Philosophy
• The Reader (Yourself as A Reader)
• Your Culture
• Historical Perspectives
• Artistic/ Literary Tradition
a. Text - Oriented Approach - A reader may analyze a
work of literature as complete in itself without
relating to it that outside of the world.
b. Author - Oriented Approach - A reader may study
an author's life, time and culture to better understand
the author's work.
c. Reader - Oriented Approach - This approach
requires research. Each reader brings a unique set of
experience and expectations to literature in its
extreme form.
Three Levels of Reality
1. Grammatical ate Compositional Knowledge (First
Level) - clears away impediments to the
comprehension of the works literalness, that is, the
human condition as articulated through concrete and
physical verbality.
2. Metaphoric significance (Second Level) - produces
additional meanings when harmonized with the literal
elements.
3. The world of literature itself, it must be apparent... has
a big part in literary appreciation - this (Third level)
exerts a tremendous pressure on the mind and heart,
compelling them to examine things in a newer
manner.
Notes on How to Read a Literary Text

1. A text acquires meaning only in the imagination of an

actual reader, which is you, with your experience,
memories and dreams.
2. to look at readings made by other people.
3. relates to the world that you live in, how it interacts
with other texts in society